It was a young country singer who stole the show on Sunday night's (March 8) American Idol. With a gritty twang and an endearingly nonchalant attitude, 19-year-old Zack Dobbins from Clay, W.V., earned himself a ticket to Hollywood, but not without an assist (and some high praise) from Luke Bryan first.

As Dobbins sat and down and began to perform an original song, a twangy country tune about love lost, Bryan walked over to him and helped him tune his guitar. Dobbins, who drove his muddy 1993 Ford F-150 to the audition, seemed grateful but relatively unphased by the assist.

"Thanks," Dobbins said to Bryan. "That's what you get when you're in the business." To which Bryan replied, "took 20 years to get that ear."

The judges, however, loved his authentic sound. "Zack, I don't think you know what you're doing. I don't think you need to know what you're doing," Idol judge Katy Perry said. "Yeah, a lot of these people out here, they're polished. They've been to some fancy school. They know blah, blah, blah. They can't sing half as good as you."

"I don't know nothing about singing, other than I like to do it," Dobbins said when he was done with his audition. Bryan, as blown away by Dobbins as Perry was, said, "We're going to teach you a little bit about singing along the way."

Still, he joked, "We got to get that asphalt out of your fingernails." Dobbins said they were dirty from working on his truck the night before.

Coupled with his great country voice, it's Dobbins' calm demeanor that makes him stand out on American Idol, a show known for its jumping, ecstatic contestants just as much as its penchant for finding talent. Dobbins admitted that he thought the winner of Idol got a plaque, but host Ryan Seacrest had to remind him that the winner gets a recording contract.

Dobbins said he'd never been to Hollywood or flown on a plane, but he will soon. All three judges, Bryan, Perry and Lionel Richie have him a "golden ticket" to the next round of the show.

Dobbins even apologized to the judges for not seeming more excited, but assured him he was, giving them a big smile. "If I go and got big and famous, I'm gonna have, like, a single-wide trailer on an acre of land that's all flat, so I can just run the mower back and forth," Dobbins said. "And I'd still have the same truck. It just runs a little better."